One type of conventional graphics imager is the document copier often used in an office environment to copy text and/or graphics from one document to another. Exemplary copier machines of this type include, for example, those sold under the trademarks XEROX (which uses a so-called Xerography process), KODAK, 3-M, SHARP, and others. Such copiers operate at various speeds, often being relatively fast and able to produce ten or more copies per minute. One disadvantage of such copiers is that in the usual case there must be a document to copy, and that document must be fed directly through or placed on or in the copier machine.
A telecopier or facsimile machine is able to receive and to decode electrical signals which carry information along telephone lines, or other electrical lines, from a source remote from the machine and to form on a document the graphic image represented by such electrical signal information. However, such facsimile machines are relatively slow, typically being able to produce only two letter-size copies per minute, even at the fastest rates currently available using a CCITT Group III machine.
It would be desirable to speed the transfer of alphanumeric and graphical information or data between two remote machines accomplishing, for example, the reproduction speed of the aforementioned copier machines, on the one hand, and the remote transmission/receiving capability of the aforementioned facsimile machines.